Early challenges as a black principal in the early 1960s

Miller describes the advantages and challenges he faced as principal of a low-income, rural, black high school. He also illuminates the growing necessity for white school officials to visit black schools by the 1960s.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with George Miller, January 19, 1991. Interview M-0015. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

GEORGE MILLER:

Well, there were two principals in one there. It should tell you
something about myself. I finished my under-graduate work in 1941,
although I finished high school in 1940, stayed out and worked 15 months
and I finished from A & T College, it's a state
university now, with a Bachelor's degree and a double major
in English and French. I came back to my hometown and started teaching.
Then I took some courses and I had done extra work in drama while I was
in college and I went off to school at Penn State for a couple of
summers and studied journalism. Those were the four areas that I
concentrated on in high school. I stayed at Highland for 20 years,
1941-1961. In 1961, I took my first principalship. Let me say this. I
wasn't certified to be a principal but I had worked 12
summers with the principal at Highland and I had learned about every
area of principalship except the cafeteria. I had done every kind of
report, scheduling, book reports, supplies, statement of receipts and
disbursements, financial reports. I had helped him with that. Therefore,
I had had the experience, not the certification and when the job came
open there were eight of us who applied and I was the only one that
didn't have a Master's degree or a
principal's certificate. But this was in Cleveland County in
1961, and they had a system that went along with the county schools
then. They had Black committemen and I went before them and then the
Superintendent decided that I wasn't the one because I
didn't have the degree but they didn't want
anyone but me. So he condescended someway and called
me and said, I don't know what it is you've got
but they won't accept anybody but you. So I came in on a
provisional principal's certificate and went right to work on
my principal's certificate. I had started on two different
occasions working on a Master's at Penn State in English and
I had gone there for two summers and then I went to the University of
Cincinnati and was going to do it in French. But when this came up I had
to stop all of that and start again so it wasn't that I was
not doing anything I took extension courses in between. This was a rural
school. I had six children that walked to school. Everybody else came by
bus. I had about 630 students grades 1-12. During that time we were
totally segregated and the only thing I got paid extra for, we had no
supplements, $6 for bus per year which meant I got $60
extra at the end of the year. There were ten buses but I found a way to
work with the principals, the maintenance people, with everyone and I
started getting some things done. I just wasn't satisfied.
The one thing that struck me most during that time was that all the
years in that county, the superintendent who is deceased now, Mr. J.H.
Gray, they said that he had never appeared at a program at any Black
school. The second year that I was there he came and spoke at an
assembly. So that was a first. I worked for him for two years and they
changed superintendents, a Mr. Phoenix, and he came to my school for his
first meeting. We became friends although I worked with him one year
there, he was my boss two other times after I came back to Gaston
County--Mr. Lee Phoenix from Asheboro. I stayed there from 1961-64. We
didn't have but one sport, basketball but that was generally
on Friday and we would play and get through around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m.
and get home around 11:30-12:00 and then you would take off and go to
the A & P the next morning for that 9:00 class from Kings
Mountain. Wednesday night was always a study night. My wife and my
daughter were so good. They never bothered me. Every Wednesday was my
study night. My thesis work in my Master's was French and I
was doing a thesis along elementary faminics, not phonetics, faminics.
None had been done for high school and the irony of it was that after I
got my degree and went to take the NTE they gave me an English one.
Therefore, although I had prepared and done everything in French about
my thesis in French I had to take the English test. So the unique thing
was I came out with more certification than I thought. I had the
principalship, elementary and secondary administration supervision,
supervisor's certificate, Master's in English and
Master's in French. That came about because I worked through
the summer. As long as you got straight A's you got a job. I
worked in the Dean's office while going to graduate school
and I learned what subjects would be good more than one area. That was
the reason I was able to qualify in some of the others. In my French
classe, two of the three classes I had, I was the only pupil and in the
other class there were three of us. So you can imagine being with your
teacher for three hours and you were the only
pupil.